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The Return of Music Monday: Lovett Premieres New Video for "The Fear"

Each Monday, Mashable highlights an exclusive new video or song. Check out all our Music Monday picks.

Welcome to the glorious return of Mashable Music Mondays, which get their resurrection today with a new twist: At the beginning of the week, we will now be exclusively premiering videos and songs, along with artist interviews. This week's premiere: "The Fear," by Lovett.

If you've never heard of Ben Lovett (no, he's not the guy from Mumford & Sons), it's because his first, self-released album, Highway Collection [iTunes link], came out just last month. Still, after a slew of shows during this year's SXSW, including a parade through Austin's downtown that ended up on CNN.com, buzz for the 32-year-old composer and producer is certainly growing.

And said buzz is due, in no small part, to a series of music videos that the musician is creating out-of-pocket, with the help of film director friends for each of the album's nine songs.

The first video, for the brass-infused take on the modern pop song, "Heartattack," has garnered a modest number of YouTube views, but the artist's second video, "Eye of the Storm," a lush, animated hero's tale directed by Christopher Alender, has amassed more than 125,000 views on YouTube since its release. (Which isn't to say "Heartattack" is a weaker video; It's actually one of my favorite songs on the album.)

Not bad for a musician who released his album via his own label, Lovers Label. When it comes to not having a record deal, Lovett says: "I know exactly what it is I'm trying to do and what I need to be doing right now just for my own creative satisfaction. For the time being, I haven't required their services."

Lovett's next video — which is already hotly anticipated by his modest Facebook fan base — premieres today on Mashable. It's a miniature film composed for "The Fear," a moody track that recalls the scratchy-voiced whimsy of artists like The Tallest Man on Earth.

To make the video, Lovett teamed up with director David Bruckner. The musician had worked with Bruckner in the past, scoring films like The Signal, which was screened at the 2007 Sundance Film Festival.

"The idea came about to try and create this collage of society," Lovett says of the video, which features the musician leading a ragged parade of extras through the streets of Atlanta. "Everything from the most mundane to the most surreal."

"We wanted to sculpt with human bodies, so we knew we needed lots of people and we didn't have tons of money to hire extras," Bruckner says. "So we created a digital flyer that invited people to download the song, and asked them to create their own vignette of society, come in costume and we'd find a place for them to fit in the video."

The team sent the call out to community blogs and flyered the neighborhoods, and more than 400 people came out for the shoot. "In the end, the video belongs to everyone and it's theirs to share," Bruckner says. If you surf through Lovett's Facebook Page, you'll find participants eagerly asking when the video will premiere.

"Some of it was planned out," Lovett says. "Some of it was throwing festivity at the camera. Every time that we would roll it, it would be something different. It's chaotic and it's crazy, but that was part of the energy of it."

Lovett doesn't look at videos such as these as promotion for his album, but as a new lens through which to view his music. "I've been working with a lot of filmmakers, and a lot of that is putting the right tone to their picture, musically," he says. "So I think they'd enjoy the opportunity to do that in reverse. Working with me to find the right visual tone to the music is like making the movie in reverse."

Still, the sheer act of creating videos this detailed for each and every song on the album is a decidedly genius way to introduce more and more fans to Lovett's music. Some may wander through the streampunk gateway of "Eye of the Storm," some might be more drawn to the poppy angst of "Heartattack," others still may feel a certain kinship to "The Fear," having participated in the filming. By making these videos, which spread throughout the web, Lovett is extending his album beyond the bounds of the record player or iPod.

You might think that Lovett would balk at the effort it takes to make nine music videos, and you would be right. Still, as the musician says, "I never really felt that fear of something being difficult was a reason to not do it. That's not reason enough."

And with the above, wholly appropriate sentiment, let us introduce: "The Fear."

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